Bloomberg BusinessWeek has posted its latest "50 Most Powerful People in Real Estate 2010" list. The lineup focused mainly on industry experts with the clout to shape the future of residential real estate, and included economists, academics, government officials, property owners, builders, and heads of industry organizations, among others.
Notables included both Karl E. "Chip" Case and Robert J. Shiller, whose research led to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. Case has been a professor of economics at Wellesley College since 1981 and will retire this year, the magazine said.
Both he and Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller earned their place on the list for their influential indices and for forseeing the bursting of the housing bubble.
Senator John Hardy "Johnny" Isakson, R-Ga., a real estate broker, also made the list. He pushed to extend the first-time homebuyer tax credit and to establish a new, expanded tax credit program for buyers last fall.
Vicki Cox Golder, the president of the National Association of Realtors, heads the country’s largest trade organization. NAR has about 1.2 million members and spent $19.5 million on real estate lobbying last year, the magazine said. Golder urged Congress to extend the homebuyer tax credit and support the FHA loan guarantee program.
John Stumpf is the chairman, president and CEO of Wells Fargo, the country’s largest residential mortgage lender. The company has completed more than half a million trial and permanent loan modifications and was the second company to sign on to the government’s new loan modification program for second mortgages, the magazine said.
Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of RE/MAX International, made the magazine’s list for the reach of the company’s brand — the company has nearly 96,000 sales associates worldwide — and for encouraging more than 10,000 agents to become Certified Distressed Property Experts last year, the magazine said.
Richard A. Smith, president and CEO of Realogy Corp., oversees the company’s massive Realogy Franchise Group, which includes 262,000 agents and brokers from Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, NRT, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Coldwell Banker Commercial, ERA and Sotheby’s International Realty.
Other industry heavyweights named in the report include Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s vice president and chief economist; Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve; Edward DeMarco, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency; and Shaun Donovan, the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
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